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Our report today on the crisis at Canonbury Primary School in Islington reveals shocking failures in the vetting of staff that led to the hiring of a teacher charged with a series of serious child sex offences.
The case implicates both Islington council and its contractor, Cambridge Education@Islington.
The case revolves around former headteacher Jay Henderson, sacked last month for gross misconduct, and his hiring of drama teacher Robert Stringer.
Stringer is due in court in September on charges of rape and indecent assault against children at a previous school.
Mr Henderson hired Stringer without bothering to advertise, interview or check references.
An independent investigation has found similar deficiencies in at least one other hiring, and that responsibility lay with councillors.
The investigation also revealed that in 2006, an Ofsted report found deficiencies in staff vetting in seven of the borough's schools, including Canonbury.
Islington says the problems were “not replicated” elsewhere — although the council's claims are not helped by its strenuous legal efforts to prevent this paper from reporting the affair.
There is a broader issue here, however, than Islington's long-running schools pratfalls.
Inevitably when schools are passed around different companies — human resources in the borough's schools are now in the hands of yet another company, Strictly Education — there is a real risk of errors.
Experiments elsewhere in such outsourcing have been equally ill-starred, notably the costly failure in 2003 of Southwark's schools privatisation using contractor WS Atkins.
Other boroughs should beware such ideologically-driven quick fixes.
Baby P doctor at fault
The demand from the doctor at the heart of the Baby P case for damages from the hospital that sacked her is both extraordinary and insulting.
If Dr Sabah Al-Zayat succeeds in her bid to claw back a six-figure sum from Great Ormond Street Hospital, it will be a victory for the very worst of the compensation culture.
Dr Al-Zayat saw Baby P on 1 August 2007, when investigators have determined that he was already probably suffering a broken back and ribs following months of abuse at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and lodger.
Yet despite the fact that the child had visible multiple bruises, and a letter on his medical file alerting doctors to child protection concerns, Dr Al-Zayat decided not to conduct a full examination.
Had she examined him, she would have seen his mother's claim that his injuries were self-inflicted for the pack of lies they were.
Instead he died in a blood-spattered cot two days later.
Dr Al-Zayat is expected to claim that she was made a scapegoat for wider failings.
Certainly there were failings elsewhere — but that should not absolve the consultant paediatrician from her central responsibility.
Anyone in her position who fails to follow clear procedures and ends up partially responsible for such a terrible outcome cannot expect to keep their job — let alone be compensated.
Going postal
Few Londoners will have much sympathy with those postal workers on strike in the capital today.
The Communications Workers' Union has accused Royal Mail of making job cuts in contravention of a previous agreement.
But the real issue is the speed and direction of modernisation in a public service which has changed at painfully slow speed.
The result of management incompetence and union foot-dragging is a postal service manifestly inadequate for London's needs — unreliable, often late, prone to fraud.
Yet Royal Mail and postal workers should heed the main public reaction today: indifference.
The post is getting left behind by email, the internet and other forms of communication.
If it cannot change then it may not survive in its current form at all.
